Woke up to a gorgeous bright sunny day on a slightly chilly morning. As the temperatures begin to drop in early fall and it is raining frequently but the temperatures are still not below freezing yet, you ideally should not waste a bright sunny day when you get one by staying indoors. The previous day was all cloudy with some rain later in the afternoon, but when we saw the bright sun outside the next day, we felt a strong urge to get out and soak up the sun to replenish our energy levels.

But ours was a slow start to the day with no plans. We woke up late and seeing that beautiful sunny day outside while having our breakfast, we cooked up a plan for a short day trip and by 12pm we hit the road. Destination: Huntsville, Ontario.

Huntsville is a pretty town in the Muskoka region and is also the largest. It is largely a hilly region in the Canadian shield and has many lakes.

Due to the spur of the moment plan, on a Sunday when the markets and attractions tend to close early and add to that a 2 hour drive, we were going to keep it short and sweet.

Our first stop on reaching Huntsville was the Muskoka Heritage Place.

The Muskoka Heritage Place showcases life and history in the Muskoka region with the Pioneer Village which has some original buildings that were dismantled and reconstructed in the village, with some new recreations as well and a museum with many artifacts on display.

You can also take a 30 mins ride of the Portage Flyer steam train that runs here. You can do just the train ride if that’s what excites you and skip the village altogether. Too bad that the train does not run on Sundays. Also, at different times of the season, a different locomotive is used and they have steam as well as a diesel locomotive. So you need to be aware of that too by going to their website to determine which locomotive you prefer. The carriages though would likely not change.

You get your tickets at the office counter. Behind the counter is the museum. So you could either start from there or you could see the museum while returning. We saw it on our return. There is a separate exit too which bypasses the office if you have already seen museum at the beginning, so exiting through the office is not necessary.

From here, you head to the Muskoka Pioneer Village. There are a total of 24 structures to see. The bell tower in the above picture is the 24th structure.

You start the tour from the Teepee which is 1st structure.

You are provided a map of the structures in the village and detailed description of each of them. So you can just follow it along.

There is a section for farm animals where there are supposed to be many farm animals such as pigs, sheep, turkeys, chicken and such. The only animal we could see was a donkey. I guess the rest went in due to it being a chilly day.

There were social distancing protocols in place across the village and there were sanitizer bottles kept at many places near the structures. We also noticed a handwashing station near the Maw House, 7th structure.

We arrived at the museum just in time for a Blacksmith demonstration to start at 2.30pm. So that’s where we went first. The anvil that the blacksmith there was working on was over a 150 years old. We got to know the process that blacksmiths followed to build tools. It was very educational. Since there was no crowd on that day, the gentleman told us that he was generally working on an order that day and showed us how it is done. Being in that shed really did feel like you had gone into the past yourself and begin to appreciate the hard work that went into making tools without all the machinery that we have now which make the process many times easier.

From the blacksmith house, we went back to the beginning to the Teepee. At the 7th structure, you get to make your own candles and take it home with you. Making the candles takes about 20 mins, so give yourself enough time there. We were very short on time since we reached at 2pm and the heritage place closes at 4pm on Sundays. So we started with a partially pre-made candle and dipped it in the liquid wax a few times to add a few layers of wax to it. It is a slow process which takes a lot of patience. The stove there is now 99 years old and uses firewood. It was a impressive piece of equipment with all its fancy features. As the lady there said, that stove, 99 years ago, would have been considered the Lamborghini of Stoves.

After we got our candles made, we quickly moved along to see as many structures as we could as it was already 3.40pm.

This is the train station where you board the train. This is structure 17.

The 23rd structure is the Wesley Methodist Church.

Right next to the church is the office. It was a little past 4pm and the bypass exit was now closed. The manager at the counter was kind enough to let us see the museum as we had earlier told him that we would see it on our way back.

We thanked the manager there and left the museum.

After a quick snack, we headed to the next popular location in Huntsville which was the Lions Lookout.

The views from the Lions Lookout were spectacular. Nice panoramic views of the hills and the Fairy Lake, with the fall colours now beginning to show and also of the town of Huntsville.

There are mainly two lookout points, “Views of the North and West” and “Views of the North and East” which give panoramic views of Huntsville.

We spent a couple of hours here enjoying the views with the sun gradually setting and peeking through the clouds every now and then creating dramatic shadows on the landscape.

It was getting late and we had a 2 hour return drive. We loaded up on some gas and finally hit the road.

It was a short trip and in the short amount of time we had, we covered enough. We reached home happy and satisfied that we did not let that one sunny and beautiful day go to waste.

For additional information, visit the below link(s):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville,_Ontario

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